An act in two parts. I have to say I slightly sympathize with the kid—when you’re working retail, sometimes your brain goes into something like cash register drone mode—but this kid sounds like he was pretty far gone to begin with.

Daniel Drezner looks at the continued genius of Hardees and Carl’s Jr. in moving from “food porn” to virtual porn (by way of Paris Hilton) as a marketing gimmick in order to gain free ads from oft-quoted “watchdog” groups. I’m not one of those people who thinks Hilton is all that hot, but I guess I’m in the minority on that score.

I am surprised that H/CJ continues to keep a split brand, however… since Federated has now assimilated all of its department store holdings under the Macy’s brand, there really aren’t that many important split brands left—Edy’s/Dreyer’s and Checker’s/Rally’s are the only others that come to mind.

In addition to Robert, another of my favorite bloggers, Timothy Sandefur, has decided to retire from the field. The contributions of both will be sorely missed.

The Moonie News Service is reporting that King Fahd of Saudi Arabia is dead, although the practical implications of this outcome are somewhat up in the air: Jeff Quinton thinks there is going to be a power struggle, while James Joyner thinks Crown Prince Abdullah has already consolidated power in the kingdom.

Amusingly, CNN’s headlines on both the King Fahd story and the al-Zarqawi story (he’s allegedly ailing too) both quote people as saying the protagonists are “well.” Somehow I suspect neither assessment is accurate.